The Purpose of “Backup” Evolved When You Weren’t Looking

If you’re an old-school sysadmin, you likely think of backup as a kind of insurance, a way to recover after data’s been lost. But backing up has become a far more powerful set of technologies.

For those us who have spent years in the IT industry, certain things come to mind when we hear the term backup. For me, the thought is disaster recovery. I spent years as a system administrator, where I was accustomed to using the friendly tar command to move data to tape, not to mention some unpleasant times managing Arkeia systems. So it’s impossible for me not to think of backup as an insurance policy — and really, that can be plenty valuable.

However, thinking of backup as disaster recovery just doesn’t tell the whole story, because backup is more than insurance. In addition to protecting critical data from loss, endpoint backup (by which we mean backing up mobile devices and laptops) also gives us:

A way to effectively govern dispersed data: granular policies, collection for eDiscovery requests, legal holds that store data in place (saving IT from having to stand up a second system to hold it). That’s accompanied by comprehensive auditing to ensure compliance with a rising amount of laws and regulations.

The ability for our end users to access their data from any device, reducing downtime when a device is lost or damaged, and in general making it easier for them to get their work done (without necessarily needing to bother a sysadmin).

Users can self-restore their data, saving countless calls to the helpdesk. (If you’ve worked IT support, you’re familiar with the “Help! My file is gone and I don’t know why!” calls. Nobody likes to hear a user’s tears.)

Once we start looking at endpoint backup as more than just insurance, the business benefits begin to add up. And so do the financial benefits. In a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Druva, Forrester found Druva inSync to have a 195% ROI — and that it would pay for itself in 6 months! How does an insurance policy generate that sort of benefit, short of a massive flood or fire taking out your datacenter?

The infographic below details the benefits and costs of endpoint backup.